The South African Summer is hard to forget.

As employees turn in their swimsuits for laptops, employers often find it hard to get staff into the right head space.

Here are some tips to get the team back in the game.

1. Make the New Year Feel Like a Celebration
Send staff a New Year motivational note or momento (Journal, Stationery, Vouchers) to get the year started. Or start the New Year with a Wellness Day or Event. As relaxing as holidays are, they are also incredibly stressful. Make work feel like the new vacation.

2. Include Everyone
Start the year by involving staff in brainstorming and planning meetings, where they are given the chance to share their thoughts and ideas for the upcoming year. This promotes a sense of inclusion and ownership, and you’ll be surprised by the amount of work-thinking that has taken place around in the pool.

3. Make the Office Fun
Create a new workplace tradition or ritual, which makes people feel celebrated and instills a culture of fun. This can include regular goal-related targets and celebrations, Birthday clubs, weekly breakfast meetings, office lucky draws, friendly fitness challenges or social clubs. It can be fun to appoint to someone who deals with all of these events.

4. Nurture Professional and Personal Dreams
Have a personal meeting with each staff member to outline some of their professional and personal goals for the year. Take the time to give inputs into how these might be achieved, and think of internal resources that could be used to help this process. Internal Mentorship programs are a powerful way of encouraging staff through the course of the year to stick to their New Year’s resolutions.

5. People Feel Good When They Do Good
Identify a charitable goal or project that all the staff can work towards during the year. Doing good (and feeling like your boss wants to do good) makes people good.

6. Praise
Motivation and praise remains one of the most important factors in keeping staff feeling recognized and motivated. Dish out praise and encouragement throughout the year like you are still sitting poolside.